Emergency Evacuation Preparedness: Taking Responsibility For Your Safety A Guide For People with Disabilities and Other Activity Limitations

Establish a Personal Support Network

A personal support network is made up of individuals who will check with you and assist when needed.  This network consists of people who are regularly in the same area as you. 

If you rely on personal assistance services (attendants), they may not be available at the time needed. Therefore it is vital that your personal support network consist of additional people.

Do not depend on any one person. Buddy systems (choosing and training one person to assist you in an emergency) that are commonly used have major weaknesses. To be effective, the person and the buddy must be able to make contact with each other quickly when the need arises. In many situations this can be unrealistic because: the person may be absent, you may be in an area different from your usual location or you may be at the site after regular hours when your buddy is not available (co-workers, fellow students, etc.).

Work out support relationships with several individuals. Identify a minimum of three people at each location where you regularly spend a significant part of your week: job, home, school, volunteer site, etc.  Consider speaking with and training as many people as possible to assist you in an emergency. This is especially critical in settings where people have wide-ranging work and travel schedules and it is difficult to predict who will be at the site in the event of an emergency.

Choose people who are dependable and have the physical and emotional ability to reliably assist you. Usually, people will chose people they like, but sometimes these individuals do not have the qualities you really need for this type of assistance.

Know how you will instantly create a personal support team.  In spite of your best planning, sometimes a personal support network must be created on the spot. Think about what you will need, how you want it done and what kind of people you would select if given a choice of people. (See Give Quick Information on How Best to Assist You)

Establish a Personal Support Network